Book Review – Beijing Tai Tai by Tania McCartney

The Experiences of an Australian Family Living in Beijing, China

Jul 5, 2009

This memoir chronicles the highs and lows of an Australian family living in Beijing with humour, insight and a keen eye for the quirks of human nature.

In Beijing Tai Tai (McCartney, 2008), Australian writer and mother Tania McCartney records her experiences as an Australian living in Beijing with her husband and two young children.

Subtitled “A suburban journey to urban China”, this memoir records McCartney’s culture shock and the impact of the bustling Beijing environment on the author and her family. Beijing Tai Tai also notes moments of frustration, family celebration, thoughtful insight and a record of the McCartney’s growing affection for China and the Chinese people.

Beijing Tai Tai

Tai Tai is a Chinese term for a wife and mother, often used tongue-in-cheek by ex-pat women in Beijing to describe the wives who spend their days lunching and shopping. The realities of the Tai Tai lifestyle and experience are what Tania McCartney discovered when she moved to Beijing with her husband, two-year-old son and five-year-old daughter.

Beijing Tai Tai offers McCartney’s account of her response to the news of her husband’s impending transfer to China, the challenges of travelling with two young children to another country and the need to reassess preconceptions about China and the conditioning of her own experiences in Australia.

McCartney conveys not only the expected differences between home life in Australia and China, but also the need to adjust to the different sights and smells, the sense of history and the intrinsic differences between the Australian and Chinese attitudes on a variety of topics.

Shopping, Eating, Learning and Living in Beijing

Beijing Tai Tai is an engaging mix of cultural commentary, travelogue, personal diary noting the contradictions and challenges of family and motherhood and an account of the extraordinary moments that make up everyday life.

Readers are introduced to the joys of market shopping in the Silk Market, Liangma Flower Market and the Christmas bauble factory. These moments are interwoven with the gastronomic delights and horrors of Chinese cuisine, the challenges of sharing a home with a housekeeper, learning to communicate in Mandarin and finding a balance between embracing new experiences and holding on to important family routines and priorities.

McCartney’s account is given with great wit and humour, sharing her struggles integrating her family into Chinese life and painting an intriguing picture of the meeting of western and eastern culture.

Australian Author Tania McCartney

Currently based in Canberra, Australia, Tania McCartney is a wife, mother, writer, publisher, bloggist and traveller. She has written and edited for several magazines and is the author of the children’s picture book Riley and the Sleeping Dragon (McCartney Press, 2009). A second Riley story is currently in the final stages of production.

A Personal Account of Family Experiences In Beijing

In Beijing Tai Tai, McCartney skilfully blends amusing anecdotes, personal family moments and the joys and frustrations of parenthood with glimpses of Beijing and China as seen through the eyes of an intelligent and insightful, well-travelled observer.

While at times the observations centre on McCartney and her family, the focus quickly moves to more general topics to ensure that this book never excludes readers or becomes too self-focused. The writing style resembles blog posts rather than entries in a personal diary and as such there is always a sense of McCartney’s awareness of an audience for her writing, rather than a sense of voyeurism by the reader.

Beijing Tai Tai is likely to appeal most to those who can relate in some way to McCartney and her situation – whether this be through a connection with Beijing and/or China or to her role as a mother to two young children. McCartney’s warmth and intelligence are conveyed well through her writing, making this book and enjoyable and interesting experience for readers.

The copyright of the article Book Review – Beijing Tai Tai by Tania McCartney in World Literatures is owned by Susan Whelan. Permission to republish Book Review – Beijing Tai Tai by Tania McCartney in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.